Finally looking to grab an SSD for my desktop, while I have read many reviews I am still uncertain which to grab. My budget is around $200, and with that I have been looking at the OCZ Vertex 4, Corsair GT, and Samsung 840 Pro. I have had amazing experience with Corsair's products, but I feel as though the Samsung 840 Pro is a better drive. It will be running Windows 8 and a few games, other media will be on WD Cavier Black 640. Motherboard is DFI 790FX, so it will be SATAII. Thanks

I just purchased a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro on NewEgg for $240 w/ coupon code. It is one of the fastest, if not *the* fastest, SSD around. Although Samsung really screwed the pooch with the preview firmware bug, their past drives in the 470 and 830 series have been rock solid. Definitely my top recommendation.

Truth be told, I would have preferred a 256GB Samsung 830 for $160, but those deals have evaporated.

As for SandForce drives, I simply cannot get over my (irrational) prejudices toward them. If I really wanted a drive on a budget, I'd pickup a Crucial M4 256GB when they go on sale for $150.

Really, though, you can't go wrong with any of the new 256GB drives, regardless of brand.

I use the Corsair Nuetron, I'm happy with it. My budget was hard 200 dollars so the pro was out of the question. The three ssd's I was looking at was the Corsair Nuetron, Intel 335, and Samsung 840 non pro.

Last edited by thecoldanddarkone on Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:21 am, edited 2 times in total.

Spyder22446688 wrote:Really, though, you can't go wrong with any of the new 256GB drives, regardless of brand.

Yep to be honest the performance differences between the various SSDs are pretty small in the grand scheme of things, and not something most people would ever actually notice. They all blow away the traditional spinning hard drives, and the differences between SSDs pales in comparison to the 100x difference in access times between SSDs and HDDs.

I agree the 830 was the best drive for the money out there, but unfortunately they aren't around anymore.

I bought a Corsair Force 3 60GB SSD as my OS drive for my media/storage computer almost a year ago. I've had ZERO issues with it and have no complaints.

At the end of November I bought myself a gaming machine which has a:- 60GB ADATA S510 for the OS drive- 240GB Intel 335 series for the game drive

No issues so far (only 5 weeks so far)

The problem with SSD's is much like hard drives. You're never going to get a solid answer. For every 1 person who says get a WD because they're solid, there will be another person saying don't because they had a WD crash. For every person saying get a Seagate, another person will say don't because they had a Seagate crash.

With SSD's, out of all the manufactures out there, there are really only 3 or 4 controllers and that's pretty much what you want to look at. The Sandforce 2200's had some initial firmware issues, but those have been worked out and I believe haven't been seen since.

When I bought my OS drives, I determined a size (60GB), then a read/write (read: 500+/write: 450+) then price (lowest) and looked for a company I was familiar with (Crucial/Corsair/ADATA/Samsung)

How soon are you looking to upgrade the CPU+motherboard combo to get yourself a new I/O subsystem? The 790FX is still on SATA 3G, so getting the Pro's and other high end SSDs won't bring you much since you will be capped at the 300MB/s mark. I was in a similar situation as you where I did not want to touch the 6G Marvell controllers so I was stuck with 3G speeds. I ended up picking up the older gen Crucial M4 256GB for ~$160 (well within your budget) and I could see the speed upgrade over my older X25-M Gen 2 120GB (write speed tests under CrystalDiskMark confirmed it). To me there is not a lot of point getting >400MB/s write speeds since your SATA ports don't handle it anyway.

This means you can use the budget to get larger capacity, near-clearance drives. The Intel 330, Crucial M4, older Corsairs are all fair game. Heck, I think I saw the Intel 520 on sale too I think. Of course if you have plans to go to SATA 6G soon and will be carrying over the drive, that will be a different matter.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Starting to deploy Samsung 256 GB 840 Pro SSDs here at the workplace. Did a preliminary trial with a Force3 120 GB using the SandForce controller. Corsair? Someone? I don't even know anymore. Anyway, it kept giving bluescreens at random times on the system we tried it on. I eventually swapped it out for a 840 Pro and that's been rock solid since. I upgraded the firmware on the Force3 from 1.x to 5.x and put it in another system. Since then, it's been solid enough that the user hasn't complained. Since it's a workplace, I went with the Samsung Pro drives for the warranty and estimated lifetimes on them.

I'd get one for home use too had I the disposable income for a 512 GB one.

The case seems to be, regardless of brand, that you should spend the amount of money necessary to get the capacity you want, but should assume, regardless of brand, that you will have to update the firmware at least once over the life of the drive.

They will be all the same if put under SATA 3G anyways. That's why I suggested not needing to get the new super fast drives. May go down a couple of notches and get a large enough older gen one and still be maxing out the SATA 3G.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

I bought a Samsung 840 pro 128GB SSD that I was able to purchase for 99$ through coupons, giftcards etc. It is also my first SSD that I have ever bought.

The installing the OS (windows 7 pro) was amazingly fast and everything just seemed boot/start in the fraction of the time that it took my WD black drive to do. Seriously, out of all the upgrades that I have done in the past, CPU, mobo, RAM, GPU, etc etc... Adding an SSD and making it my OS and program drive probably made the largest performance improvement that I have ever seen.

Of course I'm using in on a SATA 6G port and even with that much bandwidth, the 840 pro sometimes comes close to saturating it. On a SATA3G it will completely saturate its bandwidth limit.... but I would still get a samsung one just because of it's track record of reliability. And it comes with a 5 year warranty vs 3 year for most other SSD's and so far the reviews seem to indicate that it is very reliable during the short time since its debut.

I did a firmware update on the one that I got but even without the update it seemed to have been working flawlessly. The new firmware just seems to improve "dirty" write performance so it doesn't seem to have anything related to reliability.

FF, I do not plan on upgrading the mobo yet, possibly CPU soon though. I have looked at SATA III controllers for PCIE, but it seems to be hit and miss with those. Capacity is not a huge deal for me, as most of music will be on mechanical drives. The support for the newer drives plus software, make myself leaning more towards them. The two I am seriously considering are the Intel 335 for the deal that ends today, or 840 240/Pro 128. I didn't realize how much of a bottleneck SATAII would be.

GeForce6200 wrote:FF, I do not plan on upgrading the mobo yet, possibly CPU soon though. I have looked at SATA III controllers for PCIE, but it seems to be hit and miss with those. Capacity is not a huge deal for me, as most of music will be on mechanical drives. The support for the newer drives plus software, make myself leaning more towards them. The two I am seriously considering are the Intel 335 for the deal that ends today, or 840 240/Pro 128. I didn't realize how much of a bottleneck SATAII would be.

Coming from mechanical it will still be huge. It is when you are used to SSD/SATA-II then you will notice a difference. Heck, going from X25-M G2 to the M4 was a noticeable improvement to me too. Unfortunately I ran out of space on the 120GB drive and I needed more. The 840 Pro continues with the tried and true MLC tech and is the fastest drive so far. If you don't have space concerns the 128GB is the one to get now. The 256GB is too much for me to stomach. I was tempted by the non-Pro 250GB but TLC is a little too unknown for me. Add to that I am not moving to SATA-III soon so I picked the next best thing at the time which was the M4 (and a few days after I bought it the 330/335 was then on sale, like clockwork ).

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Flying Fox wrote:Coming from mechanical it will still be huge. It is when you are used to SSD/SATA-II then you will notice a difference. Heck, going from X25-M G2 to the M4 was a noticeable improvement to me too. Unfortunately I ran out of space on the 120GB drive and I needed more. The 840 Pro continues with the tried and true MLC tech and is the fastest drive so far. If you don't have space concerns the 128GB is the one to get now. The 256GB is too much for me to stomach. I was tempted by the non-Pro 250GB but TLC is a little too unknown for me. Add to that I am not moving to SATA-III soon so I picked the next best thing at the time which was the M4 (and a few days after I bought it the 330/335 was then on sale, like clockwork ).

I didn't get the vanilla 840 for that reason... the long term longevity of the TLC is an unknown factor at this point. The 840 pro on SATA 6G is blazingly fast though, and I'm glad that I got it... even though it's only 128GB. But it's plenty of space for the OS, a few games and lots of applications.

I'm thinking of getting an M4 for my laptop which only has SATA 3G, and seems like it's the best SSD in that "speed range". The 5400 rpm drive installed on it is just getting too slow. It's random access read rate is only 1.8 MB...

Well I ended purchasing the Intel 335 240 on newegg for $179, as it seemed well reviewed, decent warranty, and reputable brand. I will post benchmarks upon setup. Is there a TR guide on how to setup an SSD, or is it essentially the same now with Win 8 as a regular HD?

GeForce6200 wrote:Well I ended purchasing the Intel 335 240 on newegg for $179, as it seemed well reviewed, decent warranty, and reputable brand. I will post benchmarks upon setup. Is there a TR guide on how to setup an SSD, or is it essentially the same now with Win 8 as a regular HD?

Windows 8 + brand new install = just relax and enjoy the blazingly fast install and boot up

OK, there is a bit of a debate about the hibernation file (mainly for space reason, I don't buy the "just boot again from SSD is faster" bit as much as others). If you leave unsaved work open all the time and are behind a UPS, hibernate can be a life saver. If not, then you can try reclaim the space.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

i also am in the market for a new ssd not sure what to get looking for something around the $100 mark so far was interested in the sandisk extreme 120g ssdhttp://uae.souq.com/ae-en/san-disk-soli ... 4901859/i/this one translates to around 108$anything else in this price segment ?i live in dubai so prices might differi have yet to browse the retail stores so before i go there suggestions will be helpful

killadark wrote:i also am in the market for a new ssd not sure what to get looking for something around the $100 mark so far was interested in the sandisk extreme 120g ssdhttp://uae.souq.com/ae-en/san-disk-soli ... 4901859/i/this one translates to around 108$anything else in this price segment ?i live in dubai so prices might differi have yet to browse the retail stores so before i go there suggestions will be helpful

There have been complaints that Sandisk does not update their firmware for their Sandforce-based SSDs. That led me to stay away from it. During Black Friday/Christmas times the Intel 120GB was less than $100, may be you wait long enough you can see similar deals?

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

I have an Intel 120GB, from the 320. It's older, so probably not what you want, but based on my experience I'd be happy to recommend a 335. Nothing but solid.

When I finally decided to jump for more and was spending other peoples' money, right after Christmas, I got a Mushkin Chronos. So far so good on that, too. It had the latest firmware 5.0.4 already installed from the factory. Apparently there's some sort of Sandforce hibernate issue but I don't hibernate my PC. If you do, you might want to look elsewhere.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

I hate to bump an old post, but this thread is what I've been asking myself for the past week.

I've been torn between the Samsung 840 Pro (which after reading TR's review, seems likely what I'm going to order) and the Corsair Neutron GTX or the Corsair GS. Originally, I wanted to go with Corsair because they've been in the memory market for a long time, but from what I've learned while researching SSD's, there it's that big of a difference when it comes down to milliseconds between comparing different drives. Really, I'm just looking for a SSD that has good durability, good performance, and will last for a good while. Budget is about $220, give or take, so the 840 Pro seems like it's the right one, but correct me if I'm wrong. Else, I'm probably going to buy it before the day is over.

ExoGeni wrote:I hate to bump an old post, but this thread is what I've been asking myself for the past week.

I've been torn between the Samsung 840 Pro (which after reading TR's review, seems likely what I'm going to order) and the Corsair Neutron GTX or the Corsair GS. Originally, I wanted to go with Corsair because they've been in the memory market for a long time, but from what I've learned while researching SSD's, there it's that big of a difference when it comes down to milliseconds between comparing different drives. Really, I'm just looking for a SSD that has good durability, good performance, and will last for a good while. Budget is about $220, give or take, so the 840 Pro seems like it's the right one, but correct me if I'm wrong. Else, I'm probably going to buy it before the day is over.

I ended up getting the Intel 335 SSD. It has been perfectly stable and simple to set up. The difference coming from a WD black series to an SSD is simply amazing. Everything is so much smoother. Your decision to go for an 840 Pro seems to be the best. TR's own articles show the drive being one of/if not the best overall SSD and it would be an excellent choice.

ExoGeni wrote:I hate to bump an old post, but this thread is what I've been asking myself for the past week.

I've been torn between the Samsung 840 Pro (which after reading TR's review, seems likely what I'm going to order) and the Corsair Neutron GTX or the Corsair GS. Originally, I wanted to go with Corsair because they've been in the memory market for a long time, but from what I've learned while researching SSD's, there it's that big of a difference when it comes down to milliseconds between comparing different drives. Really, I'm just looking for a SSD that has good durability, good performance, and will last for a good while. Budget is about $220, give or take, so the 840 Pro seems like it's the right one, but correct me if I'm wrong. Else, I'm probably going to buy it before the day is over.

I'm using a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro and I love it. I also have two Samsung 830 drives that have not had any issues. Frankly, you'll probably enjoy whatever brand SSD you buy without any issues whatsoever. Performance divides between current generation SSDs are not really noticeable during everyday usage. I don't like playing the brand name game too much, but I will point out that while I do use Corsair memory, I have had numerous quality control problems with Corsair over the years, including bad memory, bad water-coolers, and defects with their cases. There is really no relationship between these issues and Corsair's SSDs (I bet everything is outsourced anyway), but buying on the Corsair brand name alone does not guarantee anything. If anything, Samsung has been in the memory/semiconductor business much longer that Corsair.